Ache
by feari teiru
Summary: He clutched at his heart and frowned, wondering why it suddenly ached. [Rogue-centric].


**Ache**

**Summary: **He clutched at his heart and frowned, wondering why it suddenly ached. [Rogue-centric].

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A small girl pursed her lips as she shakily attempted to ride her bicycle without its stabilisers for the first time.

An even smaller boy sat in the shadows, watching her curiously.

She managed to move forward a few inches before she lost her balance and shrieked.

The boys eyes widened as the girl began her quick descent to the ground.

_She's going to bump her head_, he thought calmly, watching the way her slim body angled front ways to the ground.

He closed his eyes tight, not wanting the watch the moment her head slammed onto the hard concrete ground.

A few seconds passed and he frowned. He had been expecting to hear the sounds of her pained shrieks echoing through the small park, but he was met with silence.

Hesitantly, he opened his eyes and peered over the edge of his hiding place to stare at the scene before him.

Despite what he had imagined, the girl wasn't sprawled over the floor bleeding and crying her eyes out. Instead she was nestled in the arms of a tall man. The man was rubbing her back gently and cooing soft words of encouragement to her.

The boy couldn't hear what was being said, but he assumed it must have been something good because the girls face cracked into an impossibly large grin.

He continued to watch as the girl started waving wildly at something just out of his line of sight.

For some strange reason he couldn't fight the urge to know what the girl was waving at. He knew he _shouldn't _care and that none of this was any of his business, but he just had to know what was the cause of making her already bright smile widen.

Carefully, he pushed himself forward and poked his head out just a little more, praying that they wouldn't see him spying on them.

He watched, still curious, as a short woman came into view. She bounded up to the man and the girl and kissed the girl squarely on the cheek.

"_Mommaaaaaa!"_

The girls excitable shout was so loud, not even he could miss what she had said.

_Momma_.

Having seen enough, he took a step backwards and slid down against the wall, hidden from their view once again.

They were walking towards his hiding place now and he could hear their conversation clearly.

"_Did you have a good day with Daddy?"_

"_Mhmm! I rode my new bike!"_

"_Really? How did it go?"_

"…_I fell…"_

"_But she was a brave girl…"_

They walked past him and continued along down the pathway, taking themselves just outside his hearing range.

Once he was sure they wouldn't be returning back, he clambered out of his spot and ran out onto the pathway so he could watch them leave.

The small girl was walking on her own now, with both adults holding her hands.

He clutched at his heart and frowned, wondering why it suddenly ached as he watched them walk away.

"Are you doing that creepy stalker thing again?"

He winced as a loud voice ripped through the sudden silence he had been encased in.

"It's not creepy," he replied, still watching the people walk away.

The new voice snorted and he heard several heavy footsteps come up behind him, "it's soooo creepy dude."

The people walked out of his line of sight and he sighed. The moment was ruined.

"You need a new hobby, Rogue."

"Stop bothering me Sting," Rogue grumbled, turning around to glare at his blonde haired friend, "I was busy."

Sting shrugged and grinned, "looked like you were just creeping on that family to me."

'_Family' _that was the word he was always forgetting. That was the thing he was lacking. Was that the cause of the empty feeling in his heart?

"Sting?"

"What?"

Rogue paused and bit his lip, knowing all too well how dismissive Sting could be about things like this.

"What is it?" Sting asked again, frowning, "are you ill? Are you hurt? Cause I don't think that nurse lady will look at us again…not after last time."

Rogue shrugged, "maybe…" he placed his hand on his heart, "does it ever hurt you here, when…when you see people like them?"

Sting cocked his head to the side, "huh? See who?"

"_Them_!" he pointed into the distance, "people like that girl and that man an-"

"Families?"

Rogue winced, "yeah."

"Why don't you just say the word?"

"I don't like it."

"Hm."

"Well does it?"

"Do is what?"

Rogue's eye twitched, he was sure Sting aggravated him on purpose, "does it even hurt you when you see them?"

"I…," he laughed nervously, "of course not. I'm not a stupid sissy like you," he bounded closer towards Rogue and slapped him amiably on the back, draping arm around it, "we should get home anyway, I heard there's gonna be a Herd flying over tonight and I don't wanna miss it!"

Rogue did not reply, and instead allowed Sting to drag him away to their home. The pair had been friends for as long as he could remember and in their time together Rogue had learnt a lot about the blonde haired boy.

He hated the cold and had a strange interest in fire that got them in trouble more times than he could count.

He was hot tempered and loved to fight – even if the person he was fighting was four times his age _and _height.

He liked to read – something he thought he kept hidden from Rogue.

And most importantly, he didn't like to show his emotions.

That didn't mean he didn't have them. It just meant that Rogue had to look out any display of them closely.

"You're a crappy liar," Rogue mumbled quietly.

"What was that?"

"Nothing," he lied quickly, instead allowing himself to be drawn into Sting's conversation about the Dragon Herd that was due to fly over their small town that evening.

Once Sting was fully absorbed in his tales about Dragon's, Rogue briefly turned his head back and squinted down the pathway.

The pained feeling was still there, gnawing away at his heart and he wondered if it would ever go away.

.

.

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**A/N: **SO, if you're on tumblr and are involved with the Fairy Tail fandom on it, you may have noticed people going crazy about the Twin Paradox Slayers Theory?

The theory is basically that Rogue and Sting are the _future_ children of Gajeel + Levy and Natsu + Lucy respectively and it's technically a crack theory but ughhhhh I love it so much and you know what with this time travel stuff happening already in the manga I can TOTALLY see it being real.

Also, they both look like the alleged parents to me so yup ^_^

In this fic; neither Rogue nor Sting know who their parents are, they're about 9 years old and are orphans. It's set about 15 years from the current arc the manga is at now and works under the assumption that the gate was opened and the 1000 dragons are roaming the earth ^_^

SOOOOO Yeah, I really like this future theory idea and I'll probably do a fic from Sting's point of view sometime soon probably.

(if you want to check out the basis of the theory go to the twin-paradox-slayers tumblr! just add the dot com to that ok)

Cool!


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